There's a concert I want to go to on March 25, 2016, in New York City. I live close enough to drive, but far enough away that I don't want to have to drive back late at night afterwards. So I did what any reasonable citizen of the Internet would do: I looked for a hotel on Orbitz.

I was a bit shocked when everything it came up with cost in the neighborhood of $200, which is ridiculously expensive for a single room for a single night, particularly because they're offering those same hotel rooms for tonight for more like $120. Aren't accommodations supposed to be less expensive when you reserve several months in advance?!?

I can only think of two possibilities for this: either something non-obvious is going on that night (not this concert; it's not some enormous stadium-filling thing by any means) that's driving demand through the roof throughout the area... or Orbitz is trying to screw me over for some reason. (I find this less unlikely than the idea that every single one of the hotels it showed are all trying to.)

Does anyone have any idea what's going on, and how I can get a reasonable rate?

  • The concert might be the reason. – JoErNanO Sep 4 '15 at 18:18
  • @JoErNanO: I'm reasonably certain it's not, as the venue only holds a few hundred people and very few tickets for it have even been sold yet. :P – Mason Wheeler Sep 4 '15 at 18:22
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    This is your reason. google.com/… – Karlson Sep 4 '15 at 18:33
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    @Karlson: Argh! I'm used to thinking of Easter in April, so I didn't even think to check if it might be early next year. Go ahead and post that as an answer, and I'll accept it... – Mason Wheeler Sep 4 '15 at 18:35

You should check what holidays are on this day.

Basically you're trying to book a hotel on Good Friday 2016, which also coincides with spring break for a lot of school districts.

So if you're trying to book a hotel for a long weekend during spring break the price rise is to be expected.

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Possibly related is also the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, AKA March Madness. New York hosts one of the early round matches around March 18th, with another early round match being held at Providence around the same date (which is less than 200 miles away) and Philadelphia (100 miles away) hosting East regional semifinals on the 25th. It's likely that hotels are preparing to receive a large number of guests that arrive around the 15th and then stay until the 25th, since 100-200 miles is not that big a distance to drive by car or even via train or bus. In addition, there are also a number of New York sports teams that receive out of state visitors, for hockey and regular competition basketball mainly.

In addition, you have Saint Patrick's day which is just close enough to easter to combine the 2, the NCAA Wrestling Championships that fall around the 17th, and the Red Bull Soccer home opener on March 22nd.

Combine that with Good Friday and Spring Break as Karlson mentions, and you have a combination of drunken teens wanting to party, Romantic couples and family outings around Easter, People combining SPD and Easter and athletes and supporters from 5 different disciplines that all arrive in the same city around the same period. If you don't take advantage of that as a hotel manager, you're a bigger saint than Saint Patrick himself.

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  • March madness will be in New York a week earlier. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… – Karlson Sep 5 '15 at 2:06
  • @Karlson Even so, as I said, on the 25th, there's also an MM match in Philadelphia for regional finals, and philadelphia is not that far from New York. It's possible that people might decide to take an entire week off and do the MM match on the 18th in New York, then hang around in NYC for a week and then drive by rental to Philly. Especially visitors from longer distances might want to do this. – Nzall Sep 5 '15 at 9:23
  • There are much better locations to reach Phila than NYC. Easier and cheaper. – Karlson Sep 5 '15 at 16:46
  • @Karlson even if you want to combine it with Providence? And even if you exclude those that come for March Madness, Easter weekend still has like 4 or 5 out of state teams coming to NYC for regular competition matches in Hockey and Basketball. It surely isn't the only reason, but I doubt that the sports events in that weekend don't have anything to do with it. – Nzall Sep 5 '15 at 19:17

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